February 4th 2019

 Its been another cold week, with temperatures at the end of the week going down to minus 10, but it’s been windless, and sunny, braw for working outside in.

On Monday and Tuesday, we had to pick a load of leeks because we knew the temperature from then on was going to be minus 5, and not really going to rise above freezing throughout the day, and if it gets that cold, and stays cold we then have to cut the leek at soil level, which isn’t the best, because you lose a good part of the leek that’s still under the soil.

So for the rest of the week, Rab got on with putting seeds through the seeder and into the propogation trays. He managed to sow five thousand spring cabbage, two thousand five hundred kohl rabi and ten thousand leeks.

Usually when each tray is full of it’s 144 seeds, we sprinkle fermiculite on top, then give the tray a wee water before stack it up in the trailer ready to be taken to the blocking tunnel, their new home till they germinate, and grow into plants ready for the field.

But this week we never managed to water any trays, as the water was frozen from Wednesday right through, So we will need to wait for a bit of a defrost, then water them through the irrigation, they just need a wee bit of water to make the blocking compost moist for the seeds to germinate.

As Rab was doing the seeds I was pruning our willow trees, we have two, two hundred meter rows of willow trees, they act as a bit of a wind break, and they are already in bud, they grow over 6 foot each year, and always need a bit of pruning each year to keep them from getting out of hand.